Still Life, With Cats

Richard was off visiting family today but I stayed home because I looked at the calendar and started to panic at everything I still have to get done over the next couple weeks and this weekend is pretty much it in terms of free time for the foreseeable future.

So I spent most of the day either camped out on the couch, furiously knitting lace things, or else at the computer, busily formatting and editing lace-related things for an upcoming deadline.

Also I made eclair shells because I talked my little sister into doing King Arthur’s February bake-along with me (it took so much arm twisting to convince her. SO MUCH (cough cough not).

Note: eclairs (and cream puffs) may *look* complicated and impossible but seriously, choux pastry is super easy to make and work with, and even if you end up with collapsed shells, they still will *taste* perfectly yummy. I am, however, quite happy these didn’t collapse (although we shall not discuss the rather glaring lack of uniformity in shape and size. Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood would be so disappointed).

*****

Today’s snowflake is very lacy and delicate and also thankfully free of any sort of out-stretched hands. Also I didn’t even notice the grey fuzz in the picture until just now, but I’m sure I have NO idea where *that* came from, Rupert.

(completely unrelated, Ruperts are not as helpful at pinning out snowflakes to block as they think they are)

Making a snowflake a day for Thingadailies.

How to get into the house when carrying a 30-pound bag of litter, a purse, a lunch sack, and a bag of stuff from the drug store when you *don’t* have a Sherman in the house:

1. Unlock door
2. Open door
3. Walk inside
4. Close door behind you.
5. Don’t even think about why this might be a big deal because relax, you don’t have a Sherman in *your* house!

How to get into the house while carrying a 30-pound bag of cat litter, a purse, a lunch sack, and a bag of stuff from the drug store when you *do* have a Sherman in the house:

1. Unlock door but do not open yet, no really, don’t do it.
2. Set bag of litter on ground, upright, flush against the edge of the door where it will open out.
3. Open door only wide enough to wedge in upright bag of litter, thereby frustrating the Sherman, who clearly did not expect this turn of events.
4. Shove purse, lunch sack, and bag of stuff from drugstore through the narrow gap in the door, one at a time, whilst simultaneously holding on to the door itself with your free hand to keep it from opening any wider, and also clutching the bag of litter with your prehensile knees to ensure it doesn’t fall over, thus affording the very, very, determined Sherman an avenue of escape.
5. Now unencumbered by any other bags, lean carefully through the gap, and scruff the wily grey puffball firmly, while simultaneously nudging the bag of litter forward and opening the door wider at the same time.
6. Zip inside the house.
7. Close door behind you quickly. QUICKLY.
8. Listen to the sad, thwarted Sherman sing the songs of his people, loudly, and at length, to the closed door.
9. Rest. You’ve earned it.

*****

Oh look, it’s a snowflake! Who ever would have expected that?

(yeah, sorry, I’ve got nothing)

Making a snowflake a day for Thingadailies.

The rain eased off this afternoon, and when I left the office, the sky was a lovely grey and the air was filled with a cacophony of crows, wheeling through the air and settling in to the branches of the trees for several blocks.

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Here’s today’s snowflake. I didn’t do such a great job of blocking it (*there’s* a surprise, cough cough not), but otherwise it turned out quite nice. I like the lacy bits at the outer edges.

Making a snowflake a day for Thingadailies.

Today’s snowflake (#35 in the book) has a very nautical theme to it. Ahoy, Captain! Thar be kraken off the port bow!

Yeah, okay, so it’s been a long day and I’m tired, whatever.

Making a snowflake a day for Thingadailies.

Today was the annual Free Museum Day in Sacramento, which means we browsed through the list and looked for one that was least likely to be swarmed. Last year we missed it, for some reason or another (who knows) but the year before we checked out the Medical History Museum. Figuring that was a good theme, this year we decided to give the Pharmacy Museum a try.

Much like the Medical History Museum, the Pharmacy museum is hidden away in an unassuming office park. It is, in fact, not actually ever open to the public the rest of the year (without an appointment).

They’ve laid it out in three separate tableau – the first representing a typical pharmacy from the 1890’s; the second a typical pharmacy from the 1940’s, and the third from the 1970’s. We had a delightful guide who told us all sorts of tidbits about each of the eras, and patiently answered lots of questions.

It was quite interesting and a sobering reminder of just how recent so many medications we take for grated actually became available.

*****

There have been a number of snowflakes so far where I start it, get a little way into it, and then cannot make heads or tails of the next instructions, so I set it down and wander away from it for a while to give my brain a rest, and then once I finally pick it back up, it makes (vaguely) more sense.

This one took two rounds of ‘what the heck are they talking about’, and for the first time since starting the snowflake saga (including last year), I actually pondered skipping this one and just going on to the next one.

Thankfully I did not, because I rather like how it turned out, and not just because all the main points look a lot like tiny little ghosts waving their arms in the air and yelling ‘boo’.

(And now you’re giving it a closer look, aren’t you. You’re welcome.)

This snowflake also has the honor of being (so far) the only snowflake in the book that requires you to break the yarn in the middle and rejoin it, resulting in twice as many stupid ends to weave in (astute readers may note from the pictures that the end-weaving-in hasn’t happened yet for any of the snowflakes I’ve made (uh…including the 29 I made last year – shhh) because I am leaving *that* loathsome chore for a much, much later date).

Making a snowflake a day for Thingadailies.

Apparently February 2nd is Crepe Day in France for some reason or another that I am too lazy to go look up, so naturally I decided this meant we needed to have crepes for dinner.

Crepes are one of those things that are unnecessarily fiddly (okay, let’s face it, a *lot* of French baking is unnecessarily fiddly) because the batter is nothing more than regular pancake batter to which someone accidentally added too much liquid. All you really need to make them is a regular frying pan and a rubber spatula (pro tip: using a metal one is more likely to shred your crepe ASK ME HOW I KNOW) and of course a whole lot of patience because you have to have the lubrication and the heat *just so* on your pan or else they are a giant mess, often leading to swearing, and usually I have to discard the first three or four crepes I make until I work out all the magic settings.

Anyway. All this is to say for dinner we had Crepes with Smoked Salmon and Lemon Herb Sour Cream (helpful note – the recipe does not specify fresh or dried dill but TRUST ME they mean fresh because that is otherwise WAY TOO MUCH dill), followed by Crepes with Lemon Sauce (just google it, there’s a bazillion recipes out there), and the fact that our Meyer lemon tree is once again trying to take over the world in lemons had nothing whatsoever to do with the choice of recipes, no not at all.

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But enough about crepes! You’re here for the snowflakes (right? right? Just nod and smile), so here’s today’s.

Making a snowflake a day for Thingadailies.